You’ve accepted the idea that TV makes you dumber. You know
there are lots of more edifying things you could be doing with your time
than cheering on the contestants on "Survivor."
And unless you’re working out to an exercise video, you know those
hours sprawled out in front of the screen are going to make you fatter —
not to mention the impact of all that junk food you’ve been tempted to
scarf down during the commercial breaks.
But you’ll be surprised to learn the host of other bad things TV can do to you.
1. TV makes you deader.
TV-viewing is a pretty deadly pastime, research suggests.
No matter how much time you spend in the gym, every hour you spend in
front of the TV increases your risk of dying from heart disease,
according to a recent report in Circulation: Journal of the American
Heart Association. Australian researchers studied 8,800 adult men and
women for an average of six years and found that every hour spent in
front of the TV translated into an 11 percent increase in the risk of
death from any cause, a 9 percent increase in the risk of death from
cancer and an 18 percent increase in the risk of death from
cardiovascular disease. So, compared to people who watched less than two
hours of TV a day, those who watched four or more hours a day had a 46
percent higher risk of death from any cause and an 80 percent higher
risk of death due to cardiovascular disease. And that was true even
among people who didn’t smoke, were thin, ate healthy diets and had low
blood pressure and cholesterol.
2. TV makes you drunker.
TV may make you drink more. When it comes to drinking,
we’re apparently very susceptible to what we see on TV, according to a
report published in Alcohol and Alcoholism. To discover whether what we
view actually affects drinking habits, researchers rounded up 80 male
university students between the ages of 18 and 29 and plunked them down
in a bar-like setting where the students were allowed to watch movies
and commercials on TV. The researchers found that men who watched films
and commercials in which alcohol was prominently featured immediately
reached for a glass of beer or wine and drank an average of 1.5 glasses
more than those who watched films and commercials in which alcohol
played a less prominent role.
3. TV can make your kid pregnant.
Teens who watched a lot of TV that included sexual content
were twice as likely to get pregnant, according to a study published in
Pediatrics. Once a year for three years, Rand Corporation researchers
surveyed 1,461 youngsters — ages 12 to 17 at the beginning of the study —
about TV-viewing habits and sexual behavior. Boys were asked if they
had ever gotten a girl pregnant and girls were asked if they had ever
been pregnant. To get a handle on how much sexually charged TV kids were
watching, the researchers asked teens if and how often they viewed 23
specific programs.
Video: Watching TV leads to heart disease, docs say
Another study showed that kids who watch two or more hours of TV a
day start having sex earlier, according to a report in the Archives of
Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Researchers followed 4,808 students
for a year. The kids — all ages 15 or younger — had never had sex at the
beginning of the study. Among kids with parents who disapproved of teen
sex, those who watched two or more hours of TV per day were 72 percent
more likely to start having sex by the end of the study. The researchers
said they weren’t surprised to find no TV effect among kids with
parents who didn’t care about teen sex since those kids were at high
risk of early sex anyway.
4. TV weakens your bones.
Hours spent watching TV can set a kid up for later problems
with brittle bones, according to a study published in the Journal of
Pediatrics. Until we hit 25 or so, we accumulate bone in a kind of
savings account. The more bone we build when we’re younger, the less
likely we are to develop the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis.
To see whether TV watching might impact kids’ bone growth,
researchers followed 214 3-year-olds for four years. The children’s
height and weight were checked every four months, along with their
activity levels. At each checkup, parents were asked about their kids’
TV-viewing habits. The more TV kids watched, the less bone they grew,
regardless of how active they were at other times.
5. TV makes you less engaging.
A recent study found that when the TV is on — even if it’s just in
the background — parents interact less with their kids. To learn more
about TV’s effects, researchers brought 51 infants and toddlers, each
accompanied by a parent, to a university child study center, according
to the report published Child Development. Parents and kids were
observed for half an hour in a playroom without a TV and then for a half
hour with the TV tuned to an adult program such as "Jeopardy!" When the
TV was on, parents spent about 20 percent less time talking to their
children. And when parents did pay attention to their kids, the quality
of the interactions was lower: With a program on in the background,
parents were less active, attentive and responsive to their youngsters.
